Mappy
Mappy (マッピー''Mappī''?) is a 1983 arcade game by Namco. In the United States, it was manufactured and distributed by Bally/Midway. Mappy is a side-scrolling platformer that features cartoon-like characters, primarily cats and mice. The game's main character itself is a mouse. Mappy runs on Namco Super Pac-Manhardware, modified to support horizontal scrolling. The name "Mappy" is likely derived from mappo, a Japanese slang term (slightly insulting) for a policeman.The player guides Mappy the police mouse through the mansion of the cats called Mewkies (Meowky in the U.S. version) to retrieve stolen goods. The player uses a left-right joystick to move Mappy and a single button to operate doors. The mansion has six floors of hallways in which the stolen items are stashed. The items are: *Radio (100 points) *Television (200 points) *Computer (300 points) *Mona Lisa (400 points) *Safe (500 points) The items come in pairs; should Mappy get paired items one after another, the point values of the second matching item gets a multiplier. The more the player retrieves matching items without dying, the bigger the multiplier gets. Therefore, ideally a player will start with the lowest value item (100 + 100 × 2) and proceed to the highest value items (500 + 500 × 6) in order to get the highest value items with the biggest multiplier, for a total of 8500pts. The second item of a pair will blink if retrieving it will yield a multiplier. Mappy and the cats move between the floors by bouncing on trampolines at various places in the house. Both Mappy and the cats can only land on a floor on the way up, but not on the way down. When they pass in the air, Mappy is unharmed by the cats, but should Mappy run into a cat anywhere else, he will lose a life. The trampolines will break if Mappy bounces on them four times in a row. The trampolines change color depending on how many times Mappy has used them without a rest: green (zero bounces), blue (one bounce), yellow (two bounces), red (three bounces). A red trampoline will break if Mappy attempts it again. If a trampoline breaks and there is another trampoline below, Mappy will live. If there is either nothing or a floor under the broken trampoline, Mappy will lose a life. To reset a trampoline, Mappy must touch a floor. Bouncing on a trampoline is worth 10pts. A level is completed when all the loot is retrieved. If Mappy tarries too long, a "Hurry" sign appears after which the music and the cats speed up, and more Mewkies are added (two will appear ready to drop as the Mewkies normally do immediately following the hurry message, and more Mewkies can arrive later on). If the player waits too long after this, the "Gosenzo" coin (a blue disk shape with Nyamco's face on it) will drop onto the top-middle platform and chase Mappy in a manner similar to the Mewkies, but more effectively. The "Gosenzo" coin can harm Mappy even if he is in the air. The third level and every fourth level after that is a bonus round. Mappy, unbothered by any cats, must bounce across a series of trampolines, popping fifteen different suspended red balloons, with a "Nyamco" along the way. A bonus is awarded if all the balloons are popped before the music ends, at which time the level will end as long as a player has not previously fallen through a trampoline onto nothing, which would abruptly end the bonus level. The Nyamco balloon will break any trampoline and will grab one balloon above him for Mappy. In addition to 10 points for each trampoline bounce, each red balloon is worth 200 points, the large blue Nyamco balloon is worth 2,000 points, and collecting all of the balloons is worth a bonus of an additional 5,000 points. After every bonus round, a new feature is added to the gameplay. After the first bonus round (Level 3), the attics of the houses are available for Mappy to run inside (though there aren't anything in them). After the next bonus level (7), the following levels (eighth to tenth) have bells, which Mappy can hit so that it temporarily freezes any cats below, for 300 points each (1,000 points for stunning Nyamco). Starting from these stages, the "Hurry" sign will also appear earlier and earlier. After the third bonus round (11), small "rainbow floors" appear in some of the hallways. After Mappy runs on these mini-floors, they vanish, leaving a hole in the hallway. If the meowkies or Nyamco run over this newly formed hole, they fall down to the level below and are stunned, but if Mappy falls through, he'll die (because there is no trampoline below to catch him). In addition to these rainbow floors, dead-end hallways are also created. On both the left and right side of the houses, one hallway leads to a safe to retrieve, as well as the wall. If Mappy tries to get the safe but is cornered by a Meowkie, Mappy is assured certain death. As there are 256 rounds, like in Pac-Man and other 8-bit arcade games, the last round's play is normal, but harder than usual. When the player finishes the round, which is also known as "round 0," the first round appears again. External links *[http://www.arcade-museum.com/game_detail.php?game_id=8617 Mappy] at the Killer List of Videogames *[http://strategywiki.org/wiki/Mappy Mappy guide] at StrategyWiki Category:Namco